I snuggle up against my daughter

Her little body keeps me warm

Against the winter’s cold

It’s dark, early

My throbbing head awakes me

I drank a bottle of wine last night

I think about Roethke and Larkin

Two of my all-time favorites

Sad Steps, The Waking

I wonder about my wife downstairs

And why she won’t sleep with me

Her Dad did something to her

When she was a kid

That she won’t talk about

Except obliquely

Her Mum had told her to forgive him

And that he’d made a terrible mistake

I think about how Larkin spend his life

Waiting for poems to turn up

I have just spent